September 12, 2017 By JamieLeave a CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

Do you ever get in a total RUT when it comes to thinking up kids lunch ideas? I definitely do!

While we mostly make sandwiches – I like to mix it up now and then as well. Having a list of kids lunch ideas stuck to the fridge helps when you’re planning out the week’s lunches (so it’s not PB&J every day).

Here’s a BIG list of *77* kids’ lunch ideas – from main entree, hot lunches and cold lunches, to sides, snacks and drinks!

I hope there are some here you’ve never thought of – like have you considered that chicken nuggets stay warm in a Funtainer? Or you can make these DIY Pizza Lunchables with English Muffins? Or that you can save tons of money making your own pudding cups?

This printable list contains a mix of healthy and not-so-healthy suggestions – with room to get creative with your leftovers and maybe try out some new recipes. You can even laminate itand on Sunday nights, let the kids use a dry erase marker to circle some options they’d like for the week ahead. 🙂

I hope you find this printable useful – and I’d love to hear any additional ideas you include in your lunchbox routine!

July 26, 2017 By Tiffany43 CommentsBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

Just thought I’d repost this again for those of you who like to plan ahead!

Do you have a tween or teen in school with a locker – or one who’s going to be gaining a locker starting this school year? Have you wanted to know how to decorate a school locker for less seeing all the crazy ways kids are decorating lockers now days?!

My older girls have decorated lockers for a few years. The first year I about had a heart attack and said, “no way!” and had them figure out how to do it for less!

You can see a news segment my daughter and I did for ABC 13 in Houston last year on saving money on lockers HERE.

For the expensive lockers:

Wallpaper Sheets – Target for $15 for 3 sheets ( it will take 6 sheets to 1/2 way do a locker)

Locker Shelf – Walmart (not shown in picture) $5 (prices will get lower the closer we get to school time)

Locker Mirror – Dollar Tree $1

Locker Black Board – Dollar Tree $1

Microfiber cloth used as locker carpet – Dollar Tree $1

Paige honestly could not tell the difference between the high end locker and the budget locker. According to Paige, either would have been just as cool at school!

One thing that we did not have time for in the video segment was to laminate the wrapping paper. In the past for the girls I have taken the wrapping to a school supply store and paid a few dollars to laminate it so that it held up better through the school year.

:: Locker on a budget $17::

We use magnets to attach the wrapping paper to the locker walls. You can use tape but Paige has told me horror stories of trying to get it off at the end of school. Magnets worked well for us last year.

This locker also had a locker shelf in it that you can find at Walmart for $5.

For Paige the most important thing to have in her locker was a mirror, shelf, and the magnetic containers on the wall to hold pens and pencils.

:: High End Locker $107::

The wallpaper sheets in the high end locker came from Target. They are really nice and easy to work with, but we used 2 packages ($15 each) on this locker and you can see we needed even more.

The thing that FREAKED me out the most was $29 for the magnetic frames. ARE YOU CRAZY!?

The other tip from Paige is that she thinks the locker lights and locker chandeliers are cute and had one last year. But it only lasted a few days. See they block the hook at the top of the locker where the kids hang their backpacks and it was a hassle to try and maneuver around the lamp and she took it down (along with all her friends) after a few days.

In conclusion, you are more then welcome to spend $100 on your kids locker for school. But acording to the kids we interviewed, they couldn’t tell a difference between items from Pottery Barn and ones from Dollar Tree!

Plus, as we were doing the segment a teacher walked by and asked about the shoot. I explained to her what we were doing and she told us that at the end of the year they line up trash cans all along the hall for kids to clean out their lockers and place trash in. After school was done and the kids were gone, the teachers would pull out all the HIGH END nice locker decorations that all the kids just THREW AWAY!

They use them in their classrooms and save them for kids next year who can’t afford to decorate at all. I almost cried. But the teacher said NO WAY would she spend more then $20 on a locker as she watches the kids just toss it all when school is out!

Do your kids decorate lockers? What so they ask for? What do you spend??

June 13, 2017 By JamieLeave a CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

Father’s Day is coming up soon and buying a gift doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Can you imagine all the things you could make with supplies you had at home?

Some of these ideas wouldn’t even need a trip to the store and can be made with items like flour and water, super cool right? Give Dad, Grandpa, Uncle, or even Great Grandpa a super unique and meaningful gift this year.

June 12, 2017 By Tiffany6 CommentsBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

We did this for a teacher gift – but a Candy Card for Father’s Day would be a great gift if dad has a sweet tooth!

Just use the phrase below – and insert candy where the words are bold 🙂

We wanted to show our appreciation by giving you 100 Grand, but the money slipped through our Butterfingers. It was not Pay Day so we could not give you a shopping Spree in New York. We thought about an Orbit around the Milky Way but that would cost Extra. So just Take 5 and enjoy your card! We hope it doesn’t make you Rolo ver and get Chunky it it does. We promise not to Snicker!

From your Nerds…

Making a candy card is a really easy and fun way to say thank you! My girls made a few for teachers to go with a little gift they have for them today.

First, take a poster board ( I cut this one in half) and lay out your candy bars on the paper. With a pencil write out the wording you want to use. I just made up mine with the candy bars I could find.

Once you have penciled out your wording, take a marker or paint and do the final draft. Then mark along the side where you want to add your ribbon. I didn’t have a big round punch so I used a hole punch and made a few holes for the ribbon to go through.

Take a ribbon and measure it around the outside leaving extra room for the bow and some “poofs” along the way! Then weave the ribbon around.

Lastly I taped the candy bars on. I have hot glued them before, but it has melted the chocolate and makes it hard to take them off!

May 25, 2017 By JamieLeave a CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

I know what you’re thinking, “they don’t drink coffee” but wait…I really sometimes wish we did. Although you’re right we don’t drink coffee in our house you can totally use coffee for some great homemade gifts (like face scrubs) or if you do have some company coming over and they like Iced Coffee you can whip something awesome up with Community Coffee and save money!

So we went to our local H-E-B store and were browsing through all the different kinds and WOW they have a ton of flavors these days! It was hard to pick but for those coffee drinkers there really is a flavor for everyone with Community Coffee. You can save on Community Coffee at your local H-E-B by printing the high value coupon below! If you’re in Texas check your Valpak envelopes to get an extra Community Coffee coupon!

Ok so let’s get to the good stuff, the DIY stuff. If you know or you yourself want to try a new face scrub, we’re going to show you how to make an awesome Coffee Face Scrub with just a couple ingredients.

You will need: (2 different recipes, you can choose which one to follow)

Step 1: If you are using the brown sugar recipe, combine dry ingredients first and mix. Then add olive oil and mix.

You want the oil to touch every dry part to create a “wet” look as you can see below.

Step 2: After you have thoroughly mixed all ingredients you can use it right away! The coffee acts as a great exfoliate to help scrub off any bad stuff on your face and the olive oil helps leave your face smooth! You can use little containers with tops found on the paper plate aisle normally to store leftover face scrub.

May 20, 2017 By Tiffany1 CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

As we were running out the door to church last year on Father’s Day I realized that I should probably be taking a Father’s Day gift to all the men at church who are important to our family, Sunday school teacher’s, home teachers, Bishop, etc.

I grabbed a few things out of my ‘stock pile’, put them in a clear gift bag and decided ribbon wasn’t going to cut it for men! Tucker had some leather left over from a scout project so I used that to tie them together. I thought they turned out really cool looking.

Hopefully it’s not too tacky to tell you they cost me almost nothing! Hey, the time it takes me to shop and cut coupons is worth something. The packet of marinade was almost free at Kroger, the grilling spice was $.50 and the A-1 was .08 cents with the $2.00 off coupon that came out a few weeks prior. The Lawry’s bottle was $.79 cents with coupons combined with a store sale.

They were a fun Father’s Day gift for a crowd when you don’t have a big budget and have a lot of gifts to give!

April 22, 2017 By Jamie1 CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

Having something awesome to go with your favorite TV Show doesn’t have to cost you an arm and leg. Right now all you need is fabric and other items you can find for super cheap at your local Dollar Tree or Walmart even for just a few dollars. Craft Stores are trouble right? There’s so much fun stuff to create with and the possibilities are endless. Its super easy to create any character or themed Bow Headband that you’d like but especially like Doctor Who in our house.

Supplies you will need:

Directions

1. Iron your fabric first to get rid of wrinkles
2. Now measure and cut out the 3 following pieces:
-9×4 1/4
-8 1/2 x 3 3/4
-1 x 3
3. Iron the 2 long sides of each piece over about 1/2 inch, including the smallest piece
4. Print face down, fold your 2 small sides of your largest pieces into the center
5. Now place your small rectangle onto the large rectangle and hand sew a basic stitch down the center, sewing both pieces together

6. Pull your thread tight to create a bunch in the fabric and wrap the thread tightly around the center to create a bow
7. Now hot glue the center of your small piece of fabric to the center of your bow
8. Place your bow onto the headband and hot glue the long sides of the middle of your bow around the headband
9. Cut off any excess and glue a small piece of black felt onto the bottom of the bow
10. Now glue the undersides of the bow onto the top of your headband

April 21, 2017 By TiffanyLeave a CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

This morning was muffins for Mom’s at the preschool. This is the day that the kids give their Mom’s their Mother’s Day presents that they made. The teachers helped them do some awesome crafts this year and they were beautiful!! Here are 3 that you can do quickly if you are looking for something for Grandma’s or if you need something for a Sunday School class…

#1 – Ms Cynthia – At Hobby Lobby you can get 6 mini canvas for $4.99 ( make sure to use a coupon to get them cheaper). Also pick up 2 large letters, a “M” and “O” take a picture of the kids being cure and funny with each letter (2 of the “M’s”) Then print them off on the computer a little smaller than the face of the canvas.

You can prep the canvas squares by painting them or even lining the sides with scrap book paper, you can also just leave them white. Using Modge Podge, glue the pictures on the canvas. You can do all the same child, or mix up kids from the same family. Make sure to give the top a good coat of Modge Podge as well.

Ms Cynthia loves zebras, so they used a zebra ribbon hot glued across the back with a loop at the top to hold them together and create a way to hang them! VERY CUTE. Total Cost: $3 – $3.50 each.

* You could even make these bigger and have you child hold the letters for their name!

#2 Ms Becca – Using a 12×12 canvas from Hobby Lobby ($7.99 for 4 in a pack, make sure to use a coupon to get them cheaper) paint the canvas any color that you want with acrylic paint. The paint is only about $.99, sometimes cheaper. Cut 2 6×6 inch squares of scrap paper that matches the paint color. One one square paint the child’s hand and make a hand print. On the other square, paint the child’s feet and stamp them in the shape of a heart.

With more scrap book paper cut out the letters “L” and “E”. When the paint is dry on the canvas glue the 6×6 squares and the letters on the canvas with modge podge spelling the word “LOVE” Total cost: $3

#3 Ms Beckey – These kids were a little older and they did all of it on their own really. Ms Beckey painted their hands and helped position them on white paper as if they were flowers. Next she make a rough template in pencil of a flower vase. The kids sponge painted the stripes on the vase using strips of paper laid over the vase, sponge painted over them and then pulled them off. They then cut the vase out themselves and glued it on under the flowers.

They used a larger piece of colored construction paper as a frame behind the white sheet. Ms. Beckey laminated it for them after they wrote their names! I love this! Total cost: $1

April 13, 2017 By Jamie1 CommentBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

Apples can be used year round for everything from scientific experiments to art projects. What makes it even better is there are multiple kinds of apples to the possibilities are nearly endless with what you can do and just to get you started we put together a list of some of our favorite Apple Crafts and Projects you can do at home or on the go.

April 12, 2017 By Tiffany3 CommentsBy clicking on our links, we might make a SMALL commission - Thanks for the support! See our full DISCLOSURE here.

Here is one more Mother’s Day little craft that you can do for under $1. These are really easy to mass produce for classes or all your kids teachers!

One of my kids teachers Ms. Cynthia, made these this year for all the kids in her class to give their Mother’s.

Cynthia took a poem that she usually uses at the end of the year and changed it a bit to go with the M&M’s. She printed off the M&M tag (you can print one HERE) and took some of the snack size bags of M&M’s, and the poem (you can print HERE) punched a hole in the corner of each, and tied with some tule.

Once you print them off, you can mount the paper onto card stock to make it more sturdy. You can also use any kind of ribbon that you want. These are super easy, and really cute to make! Plus, they cost under $1!